


to share the night

by vaudelin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel's True Form (Supernatural), Getting Together, M/M, Miscommunication, October Prompt Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 23:43:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21065159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaudelin/pseuds/vaudelin
Summary: The bunker light, having been revived, promptly exploded. Dean drank his beer in the dark.“I don’t know why this is so difficult for you to understand,” said Castiel, eventually.“It’s not. Just.” Dean’s mouth trembled, trying not to smile. “Your halo?”Castiel glowered. The truck headlights powered on again.





	to share the night

“Cut it out,” Dean demanded, as he ducked down beneath another table. It had been three days of slowly simmering tension, which had somehow culminated in shattered glass showering down from above.

Castiel sighed to himself, seemingly below the roar of crackling electricity. Above it, he shouted, “This isn’t me.”

A fifth light fixture fizzled and popped in the library. A small fire erupted from a stack of loose papers.

“I’m not controlling it,” Castiel added.

“Sure seems like it!” Dean replied.

Castiel huffed angrily. Metal fragments exploded out from one of the library sconces. Sam scuttled away from the shrapnel with an armful of rare books in tow. From the hall, he shouted, “Whatever it is, can you take it outside?”

Glowering, Castiel marched toward the main staircase. With a final dark look, he clomped up the stairs and through the exit. The heavy front door closed with an angry slam.

Power surged in the war room, all remaining lights flaring catastrophically bright. Then all the bulbs shattered in unison, breaking just as the sirens went out.

Dean exhaled deeply, his ears still ringing.

For a brief moment, the world was silent once again.

* * *

“So what’s up?” Dean asked, handing over a beer. He wiped his palm against his jeans, removing condensation, then leaned back against the truck’s hood beside Castiel. The evening around them was crisp and quiet, dim with the scent of woodsmoke and dusk. “Whatever’s happening, is it really not you?”

Castiel sighed. To either side of them, the truck headlights winked on. “Not in a traditional sense.”

Dean sipped at his bottle, waiting. He prodded Castiel with his elbow. The radio flickered on, briefly, before promptly dying with the lights.

“And you really can’t control it?” Dean wasn’t sure why it was so difficult for him to believe it. Maybe because Castiel always seemed like a put together guy; it was hard to imagine him helplessly causing blackouts in his surroundings.

“It’s…” Castiel paused. “Nothing,” he finished, different than what he would have said before.

“Real-nothing, or fake-nothing?” asked Dean.

Castiel sighed. A light fixture beside the bunker entrance, long thought inoperable, flickered on. “It’s a disturbance in the balance between my trueform and my vessel. The halation is manifesting in odd ways.”

“Halation?” Dean asked.

“The defined edge of my self, or aura,” Castiel replied. “My trueform’s corona.”

“Corona,” said Dean.

“Yes,” Castiel said archly. “Like a ring.”

“A ring,” said Dean.

The bunker light, having been revived, promptly exploded. Dean drank his beer in the dark.

“I don’t know why this is so difficult for you to understand,” said Castiel, eventually.

“It’s not. Just.” Dean’s mouth trembled, trying not to smile. “Your halo?”

Castiel glowered. The truck headlights powered on again.

* * *

“Okay, okay,” Dean said, clapping his hands together, and then shook out his arms and legs. It was meant partly for the theatrics, partly to ensure that his muscles were primed to flee. Dean dug his heels into the dirt road. “Hit me.”

Still leaning against the truck, Castiel sighed. “It’s not a weapon,” he lectured, “it’s a manifestation of celestial energy—”

“It’s a halo,” Dean repeated. “Already got that. Now hit me.” He threw out his arms in a blocking position, squinting. It was full dark now, and difficult to look at Castiel with the truck headlights burning to either side of him.

Castiel frowned. “I have no idea what you expect me to do.”

Sighing, Dean dropped his arms. “You’re saying it’s an imbalance, right?”

“Right,” Castiel agreed carefully.

“So have you tried — getting it out of your system?”

Baffled, Castiel frowned again. “It’s not anything ‘in’ my system. It’s—”

“I know, I know, celestial boundaries,” Dean said quickly. “But you’ve been pissy lately, last couple a days. That’s gotta affect your aura somehow.”

Castiel opened his mouth, then closed it. The truck’s right turn signal blinked on, then abruptly turned off.

Emboldened, Dean said, “I’m right, aren’t I.” He threw a wink that was lost to the dark. “Tell me what’s bugging you, angel.”

Castiel shifted. His shoulders rose, then slumped. “I don’t want to upset you.”

“Look around, sunshine,” Dean replied. “I’d rather you just say I’m an asshole, instead of breaking all our shit.”

“You’re not. It’s only that…”

Though his body was still alert for danger, Dean forcibly relaxed his stance. “Anything, Cas. You can tell me.”

Castiel inhaled. Held his breath. The night sky around them seemed to crackle. Dean felt a charge building in the air.

“Cas?” Dean asked. It came out more worried than he meant it to sound.

“I don’t like when you call me your brother,” Castiel said quietly.

Dean frowned. He swatted at the tingle building on the back of his neck. “I’m sorry?”

“The other day. In the Impala.” Castiel shifted again, fidgeting. “It upset me. More than I thought it would.”

The grass around them prickled with preternatural static, the fields flickering like a thousand fireflies.

The hair on Dean’s arms stood up. The air suddenly hurt to breathe. “You don’t wanna be family?”

“I do,” Castiel said. “Only... something other than that.”

The radio kicked on, flashing through its channels. A song crooned out from an AM station, a man’s voice warbling sorrows through the dusk.

“Cas,” Dean began, but he didn’t know where to go with it. Already Castiel’s eyes were closed, his body turned away. When Castiel breathed in, the static charge of the grass around them rippled, leaping like electric fish.

Castiel extended out his hands, palms downward. When he twisted his wrists, the charge arched towards the sky.

It felt surreal, seeing what might be lightning reaching for the sky instead of the ground. For only a moment, in the space between heartbeats, Dean watched the energy encircle itself, converge. The sky directly above Castiel was dark, but for miles around him was an illuminated disc of light. It stared down upon them like the pupil of a nebulous white iris, a vision so bright it rivaled the sun’s eye.

Then it was gone, flaring like a sunburst. The air lost its crackle.

Dean’s ears popped. His eyes slowly adjusted back to the black sky.

“I’m sorry to burden you with this,” Castiel said, after the crickets began chirruping once more.

Dean scrubbed at his face. The tingle to his skin was slowly dissipating. “So you wanna…”

Dean thought the end to his question, just for an instant. For a moment, his heart leapt before his mind.

“Yes,” Castiel replied. “That.”

“Oh.” Dean’s heart pounded like thunder. “So.”

“I know,” said Castiel. “I’m sorry.”

“What? No.” Dean stumbled down the dirt road. His legs felt rubbery, useless. He damn near fell into Castiel. “That’s not…” He touched Castiel’s jaw, the rough skin of his cheek. “It’d be good.”

This close, Dean could hear Castiel’s frown. “Good?”

“Yeah, Cas. It’s… yeah.”

Hesitant, Castiel reached out to touch him as well. Gravely, he asked, “Should we kiss?”

Dean laughed, sudden and light. When Dean closed his eyes, he could still see the corona of Castiel’s halo, so bright it lit the entire sky.

The night sky fell to daylight, all because an angel loved him.

“Yeah,” Dean said, grin glowing. “We should definitely start doing that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey look, a prompt fill that's actually getting posted! Maybe this will help encourage uploading the rest.
> 
> For the October word prompts: _WILD / HALO_
> 
> rebloggable on [tumblr](https://vaudelin.tumblr.com/post/188400738413/to-share-the-night).


End file.
